


One Flesh, One End

by historymiss



Category: Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 16:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21079649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss
Summary: A Pacific Rim au, because what are cavaliers and necromancers if not the ultimate drift compatible duo.Dedicated to the Gideon the Ninth discord, as this is their fault.





	1. Chapter 1

Ortus dies choking on his own tongue, and Harrow walks back to Ninth Base with his corpse dangling glassy eyed and swollen beside her like a puppet with its strings finally cut. She slides from the cockpit in a rush of salt water, a bedraggled black afterbirth in her armour.

Nobody says anything to her.

They have exhausted their platitudes for death.

————

“Five partners, Harrow.” Aiglamene rubs her temples and looks over the hunk of scrap metal that serves as her desk. Harrow can still, faintly, pick out the beginnings of CAVALIER NINE on the side. 

“Five partners over the last six years. Two in the last twelve months.”

The older woman looks bone tired. Aiglamene has been tired since the first kaiju crashed out of the ocean.

“We’ll try again.” Harrow’s voice is empty of emotion. Ortus had been dead weight even when alive. It had come as something of a relief when he’d gnawed his own tongue off. “I told you he was unsuitable.”

“And I told you he was the only trained candidate left.” Aiglamene leans back, bracing herself against her desk. “You have to submit to the testing, Harrow. We can’t keep throwing partners at you and watching them burn their brains out. I’m done finding you victims.”

“Then I’ll pick my own candidate.” Harrow is still wearing her armour, and she’s glad of it. It hides that she’s shaking from exhaustion. “As I should have from the beginning.”

Aiglamene shoots her a hard look.

“You know what the techs are starting to call your Jaeger?”

She shakes her head, a quick, tight tilt of the chin. 

“The Locked Tomb.” Aiglamene dismisses her by turning her chair away to the window to gaze out at the production floor. “You get one chance, Harrow. For your parents’ sake. And then you get tested.”

Harrow leaves, because she doesn’t want her commander to see the beginnings of a smirk on her face. 

———

Gideon Nav, junior (and not very promising) engineer in the Ninth Base Shatterdome, is pulled from sleep by the feeling of her blanket being violently yanked away and a spray of stinking seawater that is still, faintly, tinted with blood.

“Oh, hello Harrow.” She mutters, scrubbing at her eyes. “Still a heinous bitch, I see.”

Harrow’s eyes are fever-bright and hungry, which is always a terrible sign. She’d looked the same the day they were twelve and she’d stapled Gideon’s pyjamas to her bunk.

“Get to the Kwoon Combat Room.” When Harrow smiles, it’s even worse. Gideon shuffles her butt back on the bunk and puts on her best defiant expression.

“What? Fuck, no.” She squints. “Why?”

This close, Harrow is a terrible thing: a narrow faced goblin with only misery in mind, clad in an exoskeleton of black. For the first time, Gideon notices that she has threads of white in the black tangle of her hair and burst red veins in her eyes.

For the first time, she wonders when Harrow last slept.

“You’re my next partner.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More of the past- Revelations of a suspect nature- someone bleeds- someone else is condemned to the Tomb- Gideon says many no-no words

All of Gideon Nav’s early memories include Harrow, and none of them are pleasant.

A shatterdome is no place for a child, especially the elderly, leaking Ninth Base, a decrepit hole out on the edge of the ocean. Despite this, Gideon, the kaiju orphan, and Harrow, only child of the late commanders of Ninth Base and niece of the current two, were raised there among the rusting hulks of jaegers that Ninth Base no longer had the pilots or resources to field.

It was a perfect stage for Harrow to torment Gideon, and Harrow had never been one to slack at any task she’d ever set herself.

This explains a little, perhaps, why Gideon does not immediately remove herself to the Kwoon Combat Room but instead stays put, eyeing the slightly swaying Harrow warily.

“Like fuck I am.” She inclines her head at the tool belt hanging behind the door, though honestly if Harrow went in for things like ‘context clues’ they wouldn’t be having this conversation. “I’m not even a ranger.”

_And fuck you very much for reminding me of that_

Harrow waves her hand as if dismissing a particularly irritating fly.

“I’ve seen you in the practice rooms, Griddle. You’re not supposed to be an engineer. You’re middling at best on the aptitude tests and Crux only uses you for heavy lifting, but you can fight like a ranger when you want to.”

Gideon continues to scoot her butt backwards, as if trying to get away from an especially venomous snake.

“Okay, how about this: you’re a nightmare person whose brain devours souls for fun.”

Harrow frowns.

“Aiglamene gives me sub par candidates. They could have never handled the neural load.” She leans in close again. “Griddle. I don’t care if you die out in the sea or in this base, but I know _you_ do. I know you’ve been filing transfer requests since you turned thirteen, and I know they’ve been turned down every time.”

“Yes.” Says Gideon, levelly, as if she doesn’t want to smash Harrow’s stupid face in. “Because, as we discussed, you’re a heinous bitch.”

“I only turned down the first ten.” Harrow’s voice has gone dangerously soft, the spray ahead of the crashing wave. “Griddle, if you don’t do this, you will never escape, and the Ninth Base will die.”

“Then die and be fucked.”

“I’m not finished, you moron. If you don’t do this, you will never escape and the Ninth Base will die, because nobody is coming to help us.”

“What?” 

“We’re the only base left. I only turned down the first ten of your transmissions because they were the only ones that could have been replied to.”

“Ah,” Gideon leans her head back with weary satisfaction. “Some bullshit.”

Harrow rolls her eyes so hard it’s a wonder they don’t pop out of her head. “We lost contact with the outside world two years ago. Palamedes has been faking transmissions to keep the base population stable, but we haven’t had anything more than a blip in so long it’s reasonable to assume it’s either all gone or we’ve been deliberately cut off. I’ve been out there, Griddle. No ships. No planes.” Gideon would be prepared to bet that Harrow has never felt an ounce of regret in her life, but something like it softens her features now, only perceptible because it’s so close. “We’re the only hope the Ninth Base has left.”

Gideon sighs, and closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to see Harrow’s feral grin of triumph.

“Fine.”

———

Gideon always thought there would be something special to the Kwoon Combat Room. Maybe in other shatterdomes, there is: here in the crumbling Ninth, it’s just a concrete box that smells like feet.

Harrow faces her, finally out of her drivesuit. Unlike Gideon, she favours long sleeves even in her training gear. Despite this, a hint of the neural web scarring she received when her first partner died is still visible- just the ends crawling up her neck like a tangle of angry black veins to finish slightly shy of her lower lip.

Gideon finds herself staring at them. The hard little mouth above them, too. For so much of her life Harrow has been as inescapable and uncomprehending as a thunderstorm. It seems impossible that they could ever drift.

“Wake up, Nav.” Harrow snaps, motioning to Aiglamene, who stands next to Supervisor Crux on the sidelines. For his part, Crux looks perversely excited, as if someone’s promised him a corpse he can poke with a stick. 

Aiglamene shifts on her bionic leg, clears her throat.

“Begin.”

They’ve been given polymer training swords, in deference to Ninth tradition despite the fact that the Locked Tomb only ever uses a razor whip, and Orison Black, the terrible hulking beast piloted by Harrow’s aunts, boasts specially engineered kaiju poison in a swinging mace censer.

God.

Is it any wonder they’re dying out, here on the edge of the world?

Gideon’s moment of self reflection is cut short by a whizzing sound as Harrow’s sword cuts through the air towards her head. She just dodges in time, bringing her own sword up two-handed in a block that judders its way up both their arms. Harrow dances away, bare feet skimming the worn practice mats, only to press the attack again a moment later.

Gideon’s ready, this time- she uses her longer reach to keep Harrow at bay, and their swords clatter dully as they meet and strike and meet again. Harrow is sweating, her hair sticking to her forehead in tendrils that mimic her scarring, and Gideon can feel her own breathing quicken as she watches the other girl’s chest heave. It seems they’re evenly matched, at least for now- then Harrow feints and ducks under Gideon’s guard, delivering a vicious swing that Gideon just manages to block.

They struggle there a moment, swords locked, until Gideon decides _fuck this_ and headbutts Harrow. 

She’s rewarded with a crunch and a satisfying squeal. Harrow falls back, clutching at her face, and Gideon rests her sword edge-first on Harrow’s neck.

“Match.”

Harrow glowers, her eyes embers in shadowed sockets. Quick as a snake, she grabs the polymer blade bare-handed, yanks Gideon off-balance, and drives the pommel hard into her opponents’ stomach.

Gideon joins her on the mat in swift order.

“Well.” Aiglamene sounds bored, as if this is exactly what she expected. “If we had any other candidates, that would disqualify you both. As it is, at least it looks like Nav has the mental fortitude not to swallow her own teeth.” 

“I can spare her from her duties, as I said.” Crux sounds far too pleased at this, as if the risk of the whole base being wiped out is enough as long as Gideon dies a horrible screaming death.

“Great, Crux.” Gideon wheezes, her lungs contracting like a squeezebox. “You’re a brick.”

“Our productivity will likely increase.” Crux’s piggy little eyes shine with something like delight, and he stumps away. Harrow, unusually silent, has already rolled to her feet, but it’s left to Aiglamene to offer Gideon a hand up. Her face is set into a craggy, weary cliff, and her touch is as steady and impersonal as stone.

“Congratulations, Nav. You’re going to enter the Tomb.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Drift- Gideon’s ass is discussed- Harrow, predictably, has ghosts- bad timings- worse revelations

It’s a few days before they can actually drift for the first time. The Locked Tomb has to be repaired, all evidence of Ortus’ death scoured from the inside of the cockpit. Gideon has to admit, she’s relieved. She’d half expected Harrow to force her into the control rig straight after the fight, Ortus’ blood still swimming around her feet.

Instead, they spend the hours sparring and cramming as much formal pilot training into Gideon’s head as will fit. It helps that she’s refurbished so many Ninth machines, even if it was mostly watching while Crux or some ancient tech fiddled with the innards. He had always complained about their lack of supplies- now, Gideon wonders how much he knows of the Ninth Base’s true situation. 

The knowledge that they are, truly, on their own settles on her dully, like a sheet of lead on her shoulders. It’s been so long since she was outside of the shatterdome that it’s distressingly easy to settle into the idea that this is now all there is- just her and Harrow and a bunch of elderly technicians, mouldering on a rock in the middle of an empty sea.

It’s in this jolly frame of mind that Gideon suits up, sliding into a drivesuit for the first time in her life and standing still as the re-beaten plates of Ortus’ armour are clamped around her limbs. They’re matte black, the shine dulled from years of use, and the left shoulder still has a creeping, rust red stain around the edges from where Mortus, Harrow’s first partner, had leaked through the drivesuit.

Gideon closes her eyes against the memory. Tries not to think of how he died, his brain reduced to so much soup inside his skull. He’d drifted so often and so successfully with Harrow’s parents, nobody thought he’d end the way he did.

It was after his death that Gideon had, finally, been thankful that she’d never been allowed to take Ranger training.

_Yeah, well._ she reflects grimly, taking full advantage of the last time her brain will be her own. _Should have known Harrow would fuck that up._

The armour makes her walk strangely, holding her body erect and ramrod-straight, the skin of a Ranger even if she hasn’t truly earned it. Gideon rotates her neck stiffly in the cowl as a skeletal engineer reverently daubs the numeral of Ninth Base on her breastplate. 

“Think I’m gonna pass muster?” 

The techs make no reply, so Gideon keeps the rest of her hilarious observations to herself and struts awkwardly towards the great gaping skull of the Locked Tomb. 

Harrow is already there, getting hooked into the motion rig. She flicks a glance at Gideon, then looks away again immediately.

“Yeah, I know.” Gideon steps into the motion pads and holds her arms out to mirror Harrow. “The suit is vacuum sealed to my ass. Having a constant, killer wedgie explains so much about you.”

“I’m looking forward to the soothing emptiness of your brain.” Harrow’s voice is strangely strangled, Gideon notes, the last thing she can hear before the helmet is fastened over her head. Then again, she reflects, gripping the controls as the techs step back and the Tomb’s locks engage, Harrow has been here five times before. Her parents once locked themselves into these rigs, gazed through the twin eyeholes of the jaeger and straight into their death.

“Locks engaged, holding.” Palamedes’ voice from LOCCENT breaks Gideon’s concentration. She’s never heard him sound so tense. It’s not exactly reassuring.

“Neural connections online.” Camilla, now, her tone controlled with military precision. “Green across the board- the patch job worked.”

“Patch job?!” Gideon looks over to the control room, as far as she can, but twin, shadowy figures have already stepped forward to the mic.

“Commence the handshake.” Harrow’s hideous aunts rasp in unison.

The world goes blue.

——-

You are nineteen, and your childhood companion is dying.

He chokes on his own blood, something wet and fleshy hitting the visor of his helmet as it fills up with dark liquid. Ortus doesn’t have the presence of mind to unlatch his helmet. There is nothing in his mind, nothing at all but pain.

You have never held any great love for Ortus, but even you would not have condemned him to this ugly, drowning death. You feel the fear scour his mind clean, and then there is nothing but the old, familiar pain. 

——-

You are nearly twenty, and you sit out on the rocks to watch the Locked Tomb be escorted into the base by Orison Black. It still overwhelms you that anything man-made can be so huge. Your body longs to know the feeling of being plugged into that frame, to be ten thousand feet tall, to stand with your feet on the ocean floor and your head above the clouds.

The waves crates by their passing throw freezing spray over you in a great inhuman roar, and, exhilarated, you scream back.

——-

You are fifteen, and Gideon is there- she is always there. Lurking, some might call it. Hanging around the jaegers and the ranger training rooms, is if your fate can rub off on her by proximity. She is broad and beautiful, with hair as bright as an emergency beacon, and she still looks at the Jaegers like they might save her.

You want to claw that hope from her heart, so it gapes and bleeds to match your own.

——

You are twelve, and you linger over your dinner despite yourself. You know she’ll find you here, but part of you wants her to. You tell yourself it’s because you want to make sure you’re in a public place the next time she tries anything, but in reality- you just want to see her. You don’t know why. You’ve just already fixed your life with Harrowhark Nonagesimus as the centre point, and though you kick and scream against it, your world bends to orbit around her. 

——-

You are eleven, and your mother is screaming father bleeds and gasps as the screen is shattered and the pain comes like knives like ice like teeth in your throat you scream in the drift-

Two black eyes, shining like obsidian in the blue. A sudden, icy headache as a door slams shut before her, and Harrow’s voice filling every curl and knot of her brain. 

_No._

Gideon blinks.

The world lurches, shifts to pivot around her, and she finds herself hanging, suspended, at once a tiny figure in a rusting cockpit and fifty feet tall. 

“Neural bridge established.”

Beside her, Harrow blinks a thin trickle of blood from her hairline out of her eyes. She’s breathing hard, but only Gideon can tell, because she can feel the clawing for breath in her own chest as it contracts in sympathy.

Harrow’s presence is an icy fog in her brain, a black tide as fathomless and bleak as the sea.

“Successful drift confirmed.”

That’s when the alarm goes off.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dramatic timing is a bitch- Harrow and Gideon face the worst ordeal, Teamwork- a kaiju finally makes an appearance- Gideon has no respect for personal space

"Now?” Gideon twists in her rig to look up at the control room again, and Harrow moves with her, the other girl’s irritation at the unintentional bleed tingling across Gideon’s neurons. “Seriously?”

“K-signal rising.” Palamedes speaks again, and for some reason he sounds relieved, like the imminent threat of being eaten by a deep sea monster is better than watching Harrow pair with yet another pilot. Speaking of Harrow- it’s impossible to ignore the shudder that crawls up her spine when one of her terrible aunts creaks into the mic.

“This isn’t on schedule. Septimus assured us-“ 

“It’s a small one, but it’s there.” Gideon has never really talked to Camilla before, but the the other woman shoots up in her estimation for interrupting one of the aunts. “A scout, maybe?”

“It doesn’t matter. Begin the deployment procedure.” Harrow clenches her fists and the Tomb’s own hands contract with her. Gideon struggles to keep her own fingers from curling, too. “Nav and I will deal with it.” 

“Wait, wait-“ Gideon tries, desperately, to get things back on track. It’s too much, too fast- her neurons are still screaming from the visions in the drift, and her brain is working overtime as she tries to put two and two together. Harrow shoots her a smug look.

“Calm down, Griddle. I’ll do most of the real work- you’re just there to do the heavy lifting. Like normal.”

Gideon, exasperated, screws her eyes shut and thinks as hard as she can until she hears a slight retch from Harrow.

“That’s anatomically impossible.”

“You’re not the only one with interesting things in your head.”

——-

Standing in the sea is the only way Gideon could have ever felt small in the cockpit of the Locked Tomb. Waves taller than houses crash around her waist, and she can feel, somehow, the cold of the ocean seeping into her skin.

“It’s the pain response.” Harrow responds, before Gideon can even comment. “It registers cold, too. Sextus was working on a fix, but he’s not there yet.”

Gideon ignores her. She doesn’t care about tech nerd bullshit and for once in her life she doesn’t have to. It’s just them, the ocean, and the rapidly-approaching signal of a kaiju.

“Target approaching.” Harrow’s voice becomes clipped with focus, and the spool holding the Tomb’s razor whip begins to whir.

“Engaging.”

Gideon feels the excitement rush through them both like electricity as the kaiju breaches- it’s a hideous thing, dead white as if already drained of blood and boasting two huge, sightless false eyes bulging from its carapace. Spines stud the back and alien barnacles hang like a skirt from the edges of its shell.

Gideon closes her eyes and feels the movements as they come, priming her body to strike.

The Locked Tomb readies its whip, draws an arm back-

Gideon and Harrow are, for a moment, one-

Then, the eyes again, and the wall.

The jaeger stumbles.

The kaiju is silent, having no mouth to speak of, but Harrow growls in frustration and pumps her legs to regain their footing, shooting a poisonous look at Gideon.

There’s no time for any comment, however, as it’s coming around again, spines breaking the water like the fin of a shark. The Locked Tomb flicks its whip contemptuously to crack against the water with a sound like lightning. 

It has the desired effect. The kaiju accelerates, and Gideon braces for the impact, bringing her arms up into a defensive stance, but it’s like moving through treacle. The connection is dulled, somehow, and every time she tries to push through it, the fog gives way to a wall of pure obsidian that is Harrow through and through.

They miss their chance, again. The reactions are just a second too late, and Gideon feels a sharp sympathy pain in her side as the kaiju twists and grates its claws along the metal plating, ripping at the joins with expert precision.

It should be impossible. Nothing Gideon has ever read on the drift indicates that Harrow should be able to block her like this. But it’s happening, here, and if she doesn’t do something soon she, too, will die, and then the end will happen all too quickly.

The kaiju slips through the waves towards them again. 

Gideon exhales, closes her eyes, and lets go. Drifts along the wall of ice in her head like a ghost, brushing against it gently as Harrow refocuses her attention on the immediate threat and flicks the razor whip out again. 

There. The whip hits, sticks fast and vicious in the carapace, and Harrow’s triumph makes a gap Gideon can slip through. Before Harrow can do anything about it, she flows into the jaeger, and they are, finally drifting, and it’s horrendous and beautiful all at once, the dull awareness of the pain stifled by the sudden ease of it all, the grace with which they can move together.

They throw their head back and laugh. Drag their enemy closer with the whip, dig the fingers of one huge metal hand into the scar they’ve created, and _pull._

It is all so much easier after that.

——

Harrow’s room in the Ninth Base is not a sanctum- it’s so much more than that. She spends so much time here, sealed away from the judging eyes of the rest of the crew, curled up on her hard and lonely bed and trying to keep it together for just one more drift.

Which is why it’s something so much more violating than the handshake when Gideon barges in, hair askew and eyes laser-focused, and stands in the centre of the tiny space like a colossus.

“Surprise, bitch. It’s the consequences of your actions.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A list of Gideon Nav’s most irritating traits- Harrow submits to the terrifying ordeal of Being Known- more ghosts- more death- more feelings

Harrow regards Gideon balefully. Somehow, she never seems to realise how tall she is. This is one of her more irritating traits- the ability to tower over Harrow without even trying. 

Gideon’s second most irritating trait is barging into places she isn’t wanted. This room, for one. Harrow’s brain, for another.

“Go away, Griddle.” She tries to make her tone icy, but it’s hard to be intimidating when you’re cuddling your own knees. Gideon shakes her head, hands on her hips.

“Nuh uh. I’m in your head, now. You can’t keep walling me off forever.”

As if she has any choice. As if she hasn’t been sitting in the memory of that connection since the drift ended, terrified of how much she’d wanted it. Harrow tries to muster some semblance of her usual snarl.

“If you touch that memory again, you’ll die.”

“I’m going to die anyway, so indulge me in not wanting to play along with your shitty tragic enigma act.” Gideon sits on her bed and leans forward, inescapable, accusing.

“How many partners have you had?”

“Three.” 

“Liar. Mortus wasn’t your first, was he?”

Harrow seals her lips tight and presses her scarred chin onto her knees. Gideon reels back and lifts her arms to the ceiling as if asking an uncaring god if they, too, can believe this bullshit.

“I saw the memory, Harrow. Hell, I lived it, until you kicked me out. You were eleven. What the hell were you doing in a jaeger?”

“I wasn’t in a jaeger.”

“Oh my god, stop fucking _lying_.” 

“You don’t have to be in a jaeger to drift, Nav.” Harrow spits the words like rotten teeth from her mouth, still not looking up at Gideon. “I was only supposed to help share the neural load for my parents. I was bred for it. Engineered specifically to be the perfect drift partner. So many attempts, Gideon, so many kids used as testing grounds, and it all culminated in me.” 

A dangerously chilly silence fills the room between them. 

“They died on my third test run.” Harrow looks up, absently runs her fingers down the scars on her chin. “Their deaths had me screaming for days. My aunts refused to drift with me after that. So it’s just me, and whoever Aiglamene can bully into sharing a cockpit with me.”

Finally, Harrow turns to Gideon, but flinches away at the searing pity writ large on the other girl’s face. 

“Fuck, Harrow, I’m sorry-“

“Mortus chased the rabbit right to their death,” Harrow interrupts, recklessly, as if the hurt she’s causing isn’t enough yet. “The shock and pain of it killed him, too. Then they tried getting someone from outside, a relative I didn’t know-“

Harrow closes her eyes, because she can’t bear the way Gideon is looking at her any more.

“They did their best, and died. Then my aunts tried Ortus. I could keep him out for a while, but in the end, he was devoured by the memory too.” Her breath comes out raw, shuddering, though she has long since shed all the tears she has for her ghosts. “I am the sum total of all the Ninth Base’s mistakes, Nav. I am poison, and I handed you the cup.”

The warmth of Gideon’s presence next to her shifts, and Harrow is acutely aware that Gideon’s leg has moved close to her foot. That she could, if she wanted to, bridge the gap.

“Why me?” Gideon breathes, into the silence between them. “Why now, at the end?”

“I saw how you looked at the jaegers.” Harrow’s voice is hollowed of all emotion. “Even after all that death. You wanted to be a pilot, and you’re going to die anyway. I thought- when Aiglamene finally let me pick my own partner, I decided- you should know what it’s really like.”

There’s a weight, tentative but warm, on her shoulder. Harrow opens her eyes in surprise, ready to tell Gideon exactly how much of a mistake she’s making, but before she can say anything more Gideon has closed her mouth with a kiss.

It is soft, and tender, and Harrow has never been touched like this. Her eyes half close and she gently, reverently, draws back (just slightly) to tease Gideon’s lips with her own.

“Gideon-“ 

“Sssh.” Gideon kisses her chin, the scars there that map every death Harrow has ever experienced. “Stop talking and let me kiss you.”

Shuddering in anticipation, Harrow closes her eyes again, mouth half-open, as Gideon’s mouth follows the trail of her scarring down to her neck. Groaning, Harrow bends to bury her nose in Gideon’s hair. It’s soft, and smells enticingly of the sea, the ginger tendrils licking at her skin like tiny tongues of fire.

What follows next is not unexpected.

After all, they have been in each other’s heads for so long.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dulcinea Septimus makes a plan- Gideon makes a commitment- Harrow makes a fool of herself- things are only getting gayer from here

The alarm sounds again the very next day. An unprecedented occurrence, the latest, it seems, in a whole string of them. Aiglamene assembles then all in the specimen lab to strategise- mainly because Dr. Dulcinea Septimus has a plan, and there’s no way in hell she can manage all the stairs up to LOCCENT.

Instead, she lounges on a couch next to a tank filled with unspeakable yellow liquid, a diaphanous green plastic gown wafting around her as if she’d been swallowed by a huge jellyfish.

Gideon, for reasons of a titty nature, is late to the meeting. It’s not that she doesn’t care, it’s just that she has a lot of new feelings to work out at the moment. 

“Gideon!” Dulcinea greets the new ranger with genuine delight. “We’re in a bit of a pickle.” 

“You didn’t miss anything relevant.” Harrow says sharply, as if Gideon’s attention is a finite resource and shouldn’t be squandered on anyone but herself. “Septimus was just explaining the situation.”

“It’s rather tasty.” Dulcinea winks at Gideon, who reacts with a befuddled wave, and pulls a long pole out from under her couch. “I’ve been examining the body of the unfortunate creature you killed yesterday, and I found something very interesting indeed.” 

Poking the pole into the liquid, Dulcinea stirs it for a moment before hooking up- well. A hideous jellied lump of purple. A cloud of formaldehyde wafts over them, giving Gideon a hollow, hungry feeling.

“Protesilaus isn’t looking well.” She remarks, and, inexplicably, glances at Harrow for a reaction she doesn’t receive. Dulcinea giggles, dropping the rubbery object back below the waterline.

“This is a secondary brain. It’s only good for basic functions- very large creatures have them sometimes just to keep an eye on things on the back end. But here’s the fun thing. This is the only brain we found!” Dulcinea puts down the pole and claps her hands. 

“So it was a _really stupid_ monster?” Says Gideon, hopefully. Protesilaus, Dulcinea’s hulking carer-cum-lab-assistant, looms out from behind a tall specimen jar to pull down a chart.

“It was obviously a decoy.” Harrow squints at the diagram Dulcinea has drawn for them. Their kaiju is there, dwarfed by something much, much larger, with baroque appendages that Gideon hopes have more to do with wishful biological thinking than reality. 

“Or a lure!” Dulcinea says brightly. “Imagine it, down there in the dark, sending up a little friend for you to meet and kill and come back for more.” She looks absently at the chart herself. “Anyway, there’s another one out there and I’m thinking of starting a collection of secondary brains. Be a dear and get me one, Gideon.”

“We’re not your personal brain collectors.” Harrow sounds more than usually acid. “I thought you had a plan.” 

“Well, the lure has to lead to something.” Dulcinea shrugs her bony shoulders. “I thought, maybe, if you didn’t destroy this one but injured it a weensy bit, maybe it would limp back home to Mother.” 

Aiglamene rubs at the join where her prosthesis meets her thigh, an old tell that Gideon knows from when Crux makes her submit the engineering department’s budget requests.

“Alright. Orison Black will engage the lure, and the Locked Tomb will track it back to the source.”

Harrow nods shortly, then turns to Gideon.

“Come on. We need to be ready to drop.”

Gideon jogs after her, pausing only to give Dulcinea a little wave. She isn’t certain, but it seems like Harrow is grinding her teeth.

“Harrow?” Gideon accelerates a little to be level with the other girl, dips her head into her eyeline. “Hey, Ranger Boss. I thought you’d be excited. We’re gonna punch another monster in the dick.”

“We’re going to drift again.” Harrow points out, sharp and cold as ice. “Doesn’t that worry you?”

Gideon sucks her teeth a little, thinks. 

“No?” 

Harrow gives her an extremely flat look. Her eyes are almost 90% dark circle, Gideon notes. Between that and the scars it’s like looking at a skull.

“Okay, yeah, but it’s like you said, we’re gonna die anyway, so....”

“Griddle!” This doesn’t seem to lead to anything in particular, just a general exclamation of frustration. Harrow half raises her hands, the same way Gideon did yesterday, then catches herself and puts them down again. 

“I should refuse. Orison Black can handle it, and then by the next alarm I’ll get neural testing and they’ll know that I’m not safe-“

“Hey.” Gideon interrupts Harrow’s fevered muttering by catching her wrist, pulling her pilot to face her. “Hey, Harrow.”

Harrow’s wrist is so thin in her grip, her bones as hollow and brittle as a bird’s. Beneath the light fabric of her training shirt, her skin is feverishly hot.

Gideon runs her thumb along the contours of Harrow’s palm, then tilts her wrist to link their fingers.

“I want to be your partner. Even knowing how it ends.” 

She lifts Harrow’s hands, their entwined fingers. Raises them to her lips.

“One flesh, one end, right?”

And kisses them.

The alarm still blares. It seems unspeakably cruel to Harrow that time doesn’t stop whenever Gideon kisses her. She bites her lip, then leans forward to rest her head against Gideon’s chest.

“One flesh, one end.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harrow’s aunts get some action- two kaiju are better than one- Gideon’s jokes are still not appreciated- One last revelation

This drop is different from the one before. Gideon feels the excitement more than the dread, even if the tone of Camilla and Palamedes is the same, even if they have to stand and watch in tense silence as Harrow’s terrible aunts are loaded into the chest of Orison Black, their shrivelled faces set in identical expressions of mummified grimness.

It is different because Harrow looks at her as they are buckled into place on the motion rigs, and because she can still feel the weight of Harrow’s head against her chest. It burns like a tiny beacon, a guiding light in the darkness.

Not being informed of recent events, Palamedes asks Gideon twice if she’s ready for the handshake. She nods, knowing that he can see her through the helmet cameras and not trusting herself to speak.

Harrow’s presence, when it comes, is like a cool rush of water across her brain. Icy focus, and the awareness that whatever happens, they are one heart encased in fifty feet of solid steel, and they have trained for this their whole lives. Gideon flows around Harrow’s awareness and through the architecture of her memories. She doesn't need to be burned by them, because she knows them. She knows Harrow, knows what she is, and what she's done, and she lets the deaths pass through her like the ghosts that they are. She doesn’t need to follow them- all she needs to do is be _there_, past Harrow’s walls, her sharp and steady sword.

They drop into the ocean like a stone, the water reluctantly parting for the Locked Tomb with a thunderous roar. Gideon feels the lurch in her stomach from the vertigo, and the answering giddy leap of Harrow’s heart, though if this is the drop or the drift is unclear. 

Out in the distance, Orison Black is already engaging the lure. The squat black silhouette of the jaeger is wreathed in greyish smoke as it swings the censer, bringing it down on the kaiju’s shell with an almighty crack.

“Geez.” Gideon lets out a low whistle. “Your family doesn’t do things by halves, does it?”

“I thought drifting would mean I found your jokes funny.” Harrow replies absently, scanning the sea for Dulcinea’s proposed primary kaiju. “It doesn’t seem to have worked.” 

“I’m hilarious to anyone that wasn’t raised by a pair of shrivelled prunes.” She watches Orison Black drag the censer along the kaiju’s shell with a screech of metal on bone and winces. “I think we made them feel insecure.”

“Shhh.” Harrow frowns, then swipes through some visuals on her helmet. “Sextus?”

“Not here, we’re strapped in.” Gideon mutters to herself, before Palamedes’ voice crackles over the comm.

“I see it, yes. There’s something down there communicating with the lure. It’s very faint, but I think I can narrow it down... there.”

The Locked Tomb shifts as they both begin walking in lockstep, Gideon’s longer stride automatically shortening to match Harrow’s as they churn through the ocean floor. They’re heading- back to the base? Gideon squints through the fog, feeling a cold dread creep through Harrow’s heart as if the other girl has reached out an icy hand and clamped it over her own.

There is a flash of movement, deep in the rock that forms the foundation of the Ninth Base. 

Harrow curses and Gideon blinks the image into magnification, letting Harrow’s Ranger experience fill in the gaps where her own knowledge is lacking. She knows that they are probably fucked, but only Harrow can tell them how badly.

“-omb?” Dulcinea’s voice is staticky but still, somehow, cheerful. “Can’t- ignal- see it?”

“Yes.” Harrow’s lips have set in a thin, hard line. “We see it, Septimus.”

Gideon swallows against the bile flooding their mouths.

“It’s been wrapped around the base.”

A crash of whining feedback, then Dulcinea speaks again, more urgent and panicked than Gideon has ever heard her.

“Ha- the barnac- ea life- wo years-“

The kaiju uncurls itself lazily. It is long, almost elegant, with a crown of antlerlike coral that Gideon realizes has been growing on its head, around its horns. As it detaches itself, clouds of debris puff into the swirling darkness. As the kaiju breaches, opens its mouth and howls bleakly into the sky, the coral and barnacles in its back lighting up a sickly blue. 

The comms fizzle and go dark.

They both, finally, understand. 

It has been there, waiting for them. For two years.

Gideon swears, then, too: not glibly, or cleverly, just the forcing of a single syllable past her teeth because there aren’t any other words for how cruel the world is.

“Fuck.” She feels it echo in the connection between them, and realises Harrow has said the exact same thing. The Locked Tomb unspools its whip and cracks it into the air. 

The kaiju howls again, a deep keening that makes their bones ache and vibrate. 

“Gideon.” Harrow spits blood onto the floor. “I want its teeth.”

Another flick of the whip and a charge runs through the jaeger like they’ve never felt before. Long dead mechanisms click into place, currents whirring as Gideon and Harrow move as one to engage their enemy.

The whip flickers, shudders, razor segments sliding together as if they have always meant to be one.

The Locked Tomb brandishes a sword.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harrow fights- Gideon fights- the ocean bleeds black- it is, almost, enough.

This is how it feels, to fight with Harrowhark by your side.

The sword flashes through the water in a silver, deadly arc. She is deadly, and graceful, and utterly vicious. A movement of her hand, and a slash on the kaiju’s face weeps black blood. 

Another, and the coral on its horns shatters. 

Your blood sings as it flows and mingled into hers, how she feels the pain as the kaiju (Lyctor, the tag from Dulcinea designates it) rakes its claws along their back and uses it to sharpen and focus her counterattack. 

She is beautiful, she is bloody, and she is yours.

——

This is how it feels, to fight with Gideon by your side.

You have drifted with five other people, and you thought you knew what it was. A fight, a delicate balance, a considered contest for control between two or three participants.

This is not that. This is _freedom_. Gideon’s mind floods into hers, with all its training and longing and easy confidence, and Harrow has never felt more powerful. The Tomb handles the sword like it’s the most natural thing in the world, great two handed sweeps that tear into Lyctor like so much meat.

You are drunk on her, drunk on her power, and you would gladly drain this moment dry.

——

They are almost enough. But Lyctor is ancient, and she has been waiting patiently for them for two years, down in the dark and freezing cold.

Teeth as long as buses clamp down on the Locked Tomb’s chest, metal screeching as the kaiju worries the mech like a dog with a bone. Sparks fly as Lyctor lets off her organic electric pulse again, and a great shattering roar thrums through them.

Slowly, inexorably, Lyctor coils herself around the Locked Tomb and drifts with them to the bottom of the sea. They cannot move, they are alone, and not even the alarms in their cockpit are blaring. The jaeger is dead.

Wrapped in Lyctor’s coils, Gideon checks through options, weapons, everything they have- but there’s only one system that still works. One option left.

The reactor.

Gideon already knows what she has to do.

She knows how this ends. 

(She was always supposed to die)

“Harrowhark.” She doesn’t need to speak, not really, but something in Gideon just wants to say Harrow’s name as often as she can. 

“No.” Harrow snarls, and the walls go up again in a sheet of frozen steel. “Fuck you, Gideon. I refuse to allow this.”

It’s too late. Gideon is too embedded in the machine, now, and she is past the walls before they’re even formed, barriers of her own sliding into place. Harrow should be proud of their completeness- instead, her consciousness scrabbles against them, trying to find purchase and sliding uselessly away.

“It’s okay.” The countdown begins and Gideon turns her head to look at Harrow. Her co-pilot is trembling- her narrow body full to the brim with rage, and grief, and pain. Whatever connection they have, it’s ruined now, Gideon is sure.

It is, just barely, worth it.

“It was always going to end this way.” She starts the eject sequence for Harrow’s rig and reaches out as far as she can.

Their gloved fingers brush. Harrow lets out a terrible, desperate howl-

And she is gone.


	9. Coda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘The water can’t drown me, I’m done 
> 
> With my dying.’

Harrow’s pod bobs to the surface as the ocean boils. Scrambling out of the pod, she rips her helmet off and tosses it into the water. Her chest heaves and she can’t breathe, the armour like a cage around her body.

Below her, fathoms deep, a bright ball of light builds and glows. It is beautiful, if you don’t know what it is. 

Screaming, she pounds her fists on the slick surface of her escape pod. 

The ocean takes her rage, like it has taken everything else. 

In the end, her throat raw, Harrow lifts her gaze to the water and pushes her sodden hair back from her forehead. Perhaps, she wonders, in the one remaining conscious corner of her battered and hollow heart, she can stay here forever, suspended between the sea and sky.

It would not be so bad, after so much death, to rest.

Out in the water, as she watches, the black shell of an escape pod breaks the surface.


End file.
